


More Than Meets the Eye

by PaxieAmor



Series: Bedtime Stories [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bedtime Stories, F/M, Kidfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 04:23:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxieAmor/pseuds/PaxieAmor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which Claire Rogers-Stark is not told the difference between real life and fiction...</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Meets the Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [See_Kay_Write](https://archiveofourown.org/users/See_Kay_Write/gifts).



> For my Kay, who went to bed before the story was finished, but will enjoy it when she wakes up ^_^

So, Claire has been with the Avengers for almost two months and she’s doing surprisingly well. “Nee and Pap” are her favorites, of course, but for some strange reason, she really loves _Clint_. Clint Barton, who (even if he is one of her best friends) is continuously the biggest pain in Toni’s ass next to Justin Hammer, has stolen the heart of little Claire Rogers-Stark and is ~~probably~~ definitely Claire’s first “boyfriend”.

This is proven when Clint comes out of his room one morning and is met with a tackle and an enthusiastic “Clint!”, which is the first thing she’s said besides “Hi”, “Pap” and “Nee”.

"Hey look,” Clint says with a smile, giving her a hug. “She can say my name now." Claire snuggles close to him, a bright smile on her face.

"Pap!” she says to Steve, who is watching from the kitchen table. “Pap, Clint!" Steve looks at her curiously.

"…Cap?" he clearly feels the need to try.

"Pap!"

"Okay, still Pap then…" The rest of the house decided on day two that she could probably say “Cap” if she wanted, but Steve is Pap and will likely be Pap until the end of time.

So, if Claire isn’t with Toni or Steve, she is stuck to Clint. Which, of course, means Clint is the first person asked to babysit when Toni has to go to the office and Steve needs to go be Captain America and look dashing for People Magazine.

This is how Claire Rogers-Stark was introduced to Transformers.

Toni doesn’t become aware of Claire’s knowledge of the show until they’re down in her workshop; though she’s usually working right with Toni, Claire does have her own special bench with tools that Toni set up specifically for her to use when Toni’s working on something that could be more than too dangerous for a two-year-old and Claire is very good about going over there to work when Toni asks her to. One day, however, Toni notices that Claire is very focused on the black racing striped yellow 1969 Chevy Camaro that she’s been restoring for the better part of three years. It was just a rusted frame when Toni found it in a junk yard and was now mostly finished. Toni took her time on that car; it was the first labor of _love_ she picked up following Afghanistan and it made her grin to see Claire taking such an interest in it.

“Like what you see there, munchkin?” she asks. Everyone has their own nickname for her; Toni always uses munchkin or kiddo, Steve calls her sweets, Thor tends to use Little One, Natasha says something in Russian that no one understands but they all know she’s talking to Claire so no one questions it, Bruce calls her dear or darling, and Clint calls her kidlet. God help you if you try to use someone else’s name, because Claire will tear you a new one.

“Bum’bee!” Claire says, poking the car, looking a little distressed. “Nee, Bum’bee!” Toni just stares at her.

“Um… what?”

“Bum’bee, Nee! Vroom!” Claire poked the car again. “Vroom, Bum’bee! Nee, no vroom!” Toni took a moment to rethink that sentence, translating it from two-year-old to thirty seven-year-old.

“…Bumblebee?”

“Yes! Bum’bee, Nee! No vroom!” Claire was starting to poke the car more frantically, looking like she was going to cry at any moment. Toni hated it when Claire cried because the poor thing just _shouldn’t_ cry for any reason.

“Come here, munchkin,” Toni says, scooping the child into her arms and holding her close. “This… this isn’t Bumblebee, honey, it just looks like him…” Claire looked at her, confused

“…no vroom, Nee?” she asked, which Toni could only assume means “he’s not going to turn into a giant robot?”

“No, no vroom, Munchkin… as cool as that would be, I’m pretty sure your Pap wouldn’t like it if I made you a Transformer…” Toni can’t help grinning, because, come on, how freaking _awesome_ would that be, owning a Transformer? Toni could probably do it to, I mean come on; it’s basically putting Jarvis into a car, a la Knight Rider and giving said car the ability to turn into a robot… no, Steve wouldn’t like that at all.

“Want Bum’bee, Nee,” Claire says sadly, looking at the car. And doesn’t that just break Toni’s heart, knowing she could probably give her munchkin what she wants but knowing that Steve _definitely_ wouldn’t like that idea.

So she comes up with a compromise.

When Steve comes down to the workshop later, Toni is sitting on the futon he insisted she have down there (so if she needs to sleep, she can do it there rather than on the floor), watching Claire giggle as she chases a small toy that looks exactly like Toni’s Camaro.

“Bum’bee!” she squeals; the car turns into a robot and runs over to Claire, who picks him up and hugs him close. “Bum’bee, Pap!”

“Toni, what did you _do_?” Steve asks, which causes Toni to throw her hands up into the air.

“This is so not totally my fault; this one is, like, ninety eight percent Clint’s fault because he didn’t explain to Claire that the Transformers are fictional and that my Camaro isn’t more than meets the eye and it’s not like the robot isn’t useful, Steve, I mean come on, it’s got built in GPS and she loves the thing, so really you can’t be too upset about this, can you and if you can, the—”

And Steve kisses her, because that’s the only way to get Toni to shut up. Claire, being the decent sort, covers Bum’bee’s innocent eyes and runs off to show her new friend to Clint.


End file.
